Broken by A.E. Rought
- Pub. Date: January 08, 2013
- Publisher: Angry Robot-Strange Chemistry
- Pages:384
- Goodreads/Amazon/Book Depository
Imagine a modern spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where a young couple’s undying love and the grief of a father pushed beyond sanity could spell the destruction of them all.
A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry's boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetery and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.
When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she's intrigued despite herself. He's an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely... familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel's.
The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there's something very wrong with Alex Franks. And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks' estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.
First Line: Cold seeps through my jacket while I lean on the wrought iron fence, staring at the rows of headstones parading across the lawn of Memorial Gardens cemetery.
Review: I haven't read a retelling of Frankenstein until now and Broken did a good job with bringing the creepiness factor in the second half of the book. I will tell you right now there was no real element of surprise, if you read the blurb ( which gives away to much information ) you already know whats going on and can easily put everything together before it happens.
Emma who is a very depressed teenager is mourning the death of Daniel her once boyfriend who died tragically right in front of her. She hangs out at the cemetery even though there is no grave for Daniel, but she feels closer to him there since it was their spot. In comes Alex Franks the new guy at school which every girl crushes on but he has eyes only for Emma. Strangely he reminds Emma a lot of Daniel.
The romance and attraction happened a little faster then I like but I'm letting it slide in this one since obviously the reasoning behind it made sense due to the circumstances. As for the characters Emma was sad and miserable for the most part and people calling her horrible names when she actually was starting to move on from her past didn't help. As for Alex he was likeable and was just as damaged as Emma but had good character development throughout the book.
My only real issue was not much happened in the first half or so of the book, well nothing that screamed Frankenstein, it was just Alex and Emma and cliched high school drama. But around the second half of the book things picked up and even though predicable became interesting and creepy, just too bad the focus on the actual Frankenstein bit of the book didn't happen sooner.
As for the writing it had a Gothic style that worked, and Rought is actually very talented at writing certain scenes that will really just get under your skin. Also Rought did do a wonderful job in writing about Emma's grief otherwise I'm pretty sure a depressing character like her would have made me put aside this book midway but the writing was done well and kept me reading and connected to the characters.
Overall I expected a whole lot more from this book but Broken is one of those books even with all the issues I had with it I still enjoyed it.
